Maiti Nepal has initiated Advocacy, Awareness And Community Sensitisation program in Bharatpur, Chitwan with the kind support of UNDP (United Nations Development Program) from April 2003. Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV/AIDS (GIPA) is the cross cutting theme of this project.

1. Project Goal
To combat the trafficking of girls and women and HIV/AIDS in Chitwan through awareness, advocacy, prevention and care and support.

Objectives
To undertake advocacy for the prevention of trafficking of women and girls and HIV/AIDS by mobilising PLWHA (People Living with HIV / AIDS) groups in the targeted districts for awareness raising and developing and implementing concrete activities.

To engage in mobilisation and capacity building at the community level by undertaking awareness raising and sensitisation and dissemination of lessons learnt.

2. Project Location, Focus and Activities
Location: Chitwan
The district of Chitwan lies in the Central Development Region and covers an area of 2218 Sq. Kilometres. Chitwan consists of 37 Village Development Committees and 2 Municipalities. It's population is more than 474197, female population is 239223. Density of population density is 213.8 per square Kilometres.

Female share 0.94% share in Parliament, 16.14 in professional job, 6.51 in administrative jobs, adult literacy rate is 31.80. Chitwan comes under Narayani Zone.

It encompasses the district of Gorkha and Tanahun in North, Dhading and Makwanpur in East, Nawalparasi in West and Parsa and India in South.

MAITI NEPAL proposes to address the problem of trafficking in girls and women & HIV/AIDS by intervening at the Awareness and Prevention levels. The project package consists of three different programs.

These programs directly reach out to the affected target groups.

Reasons for selecting Chitwan as core of activities:
1. Due to current insecurity situation plenty of displaced people from neighbouring districts are pouring in Chitwan as Chitwan is centre of flourishing business, has fertile land and has ample opportunities of other commercial work. Specially, displaced people from district of Gurkha, Tanahuan, Nawalparasi (which are highly affected by the present insurgency crisis) have migrated on mass. Due to this, children and girls coming from adjoining districts are at high risk because they are simple and easy to lure.

2. The southern belt of Chitwan has open border with India. There is only one official point with few government officials to keep vigilance on border. No passport and visa requirement increases the risk of more girls being pushed into trafficking through these easy routes. Regular flow of people from both sides has created a convenient environment for pimps to take girls across border. On top of that, there are no documentation procedures and system of proper identification for nationals of both the sides of the border. This has made it easy for pimps to abscond with girls.

3. Previous investigative work by Maiti Nepal revealed that Chitwan because of presence of National Highway commercial sex is on increase. New tourist resorts are being building up, number of tea stalls and small sized hotels are coming up. For that reason, commercial sex has become a thriving business. This leads to innocent girls being trafficked and getting infected by HIV/AIDS.

4. Records of children/girls rescued and repatriated from Indian brothels prove that nearly 30 % children/ girls belong to district of Chitwan and are mostly infected by HIV/AIDS. Accounts of children/girls intercepted from being trafficked by surveillance monitors (comprising of survivors of trafficking) illustrates that al least nine – ten are children/girls are intercepted every month.

Taking this situation in consideration, it has become very necessary to acquaint people on the hazards of trafficking of children and girls. For these reasons Maiti Nepal envisions advocacy, awareness, community sensitisation and care & support programs in Chitwan. This project proposes to develop a preventive programme, which will reduce the incidences of trafficking and HIV/AIDS and provide care and support to the survivors of trafficking.


PROGRAMS

1. Advocacy and Awareness
Mobilisation of PLWHA groups (Survivors of Trafficking and HIV/AIDS) against girl trafficking and HIV/AIDS in affected districts.

Mobilisation of PLWHA groups (Survivors of Trafficking and HIV/AIDS) will be a very significant tool in raising awareness on the issue of trafficking and HIV / AIDs. They can be the best advocates for their rights and can provide an effective social support system for other girl survivors of trafficking and HIV/ AIDS. In some countries, PLWHA have been trained as peer counsellors, including child victims who have successfully recovered from their traumatic experiences. They will be very effective at getting the trust of other PLWHA (Survivors of Trafficking and HIV/AIDS) and even their family members and other people in the community.

Maiti Nepal seeks to create a unique programme with the concurrence of local community authorities to raise awareness on girl trafficking and HIV/AIDS; to activate other PLWHA, to spread their knowledge into the public, to develop a strong network of PLWHA, to work against the problem and finally to form pressure groups to tackle the problem. Raising the awareness of community can contribute to prevention. This programme has been designed to make the community aware of the effects of girl trafficking and HIV/AIDS; through sensitisation programs, the communities can provide a supportive environment that could provide emotional and humane support to PLWHA.

2. Community Sensitisation
The primary aim of this project is to bring the local community leaders, activists, and interested parties to receive an orientation on overall girl trafficking problem in Nepal through information gathering, evaluate lessons learnt and best practices to be followed.

This programme is also inclined to develop community level strategies to fight against and prevent girl trafficking. This programme aims to develop community level strategies to combat trafficking.

This programme will set up a series of 2/3 days orientation and strategy development workshops throughout the district. The participants will include: community leaders, activists, community health workers and volunteers, police representatives, social workers, traditional healers, school teachers, women's group leaders, local club representatives and other concerned parties. The said programme is to be carried out in district.